Furthermore, the idea that this baby boomer traveler would consider any form of group travel for an international trip was simply out of the question.  I’m far too independent, would prefer to have my own schedule, I love to experience world history when traveling, and I have little patience for some of the drama that I envisioned might happen when you throw a bunch of people together overseas.

Therefore, when Abercrombie & Kent (A&K) called to see if we might like to experience one of their new Connections journeys, my immediate response was, “no thanks”.  However, Carol fought back by reminding me that A&K is quite likely the world’s foremost luxury travel tour provider, had a new program that offered a fair amount of free time, and would save her literally months of planning, I easily succumbed to her batting eyelashes. (Full disclosure: Abercrombie & Kent graciously covered our travel costs in this case.)

Having recently returned from a week in Spain with A&K, I thought I might share with you the pros and cons of group travel from our first group travel experience:

Group Travel: The Pros

• For those of you who detest planning what to do, where to go, where to eat, and where to stay, then group travel offers you little or no planning.
• When traveling internationally, a whole host of intricacies come into play as you consider language barriers, currency exchange, directions, local customs, or even something as simple as reading a menu.   With a travel director in charge, international travel challenges are removed.
• A good group travel company will get you to the best sites, have you staying in the best hotels, bypassing long lines, eating at the best restaurants, with the knowledge of a local and leaving you with enjoyment instead of stress.
• Single travelers are likely to greatly enjoy the benefits of group travel.  It will remove a great deal of the fear and stress that single travelers often experience.
• You’ll make some new life-long friends.

Group Travel: The Cons

• For some of you, starting out promptly at 8:30 in the morning might not be your cup of tea. Generally speaking, with group travel, you are going to live by a fairly rigid, fixed schedule.  Making changes with large groups of people is very difficult and therefore not likely.  Therefore, spontaneity is a foreign language with this type of travel.
• Some group travel companies have quite large groups.  I don’t know about you, but I have no interest in traveling in a pack of 60 people.  Nope.  Not going to do it.
• With group travel, you’re very likely to spend some time in a bus.  It’s the most practical way to move a group of people around tourist attractions.  However, long distances might be covered by train or even an airplane.  I get motion sickness, so I was quick to stake my territory in the front seat of the bus to prevent any problems.
• Your group may contain a drama queen who is constantly disrupting your travel experience.
• The trip doesn’t live up to the travel brochure and your hotel has bed bugs, the food in the scheduled restaurants is horrible, you can never hear your travel guide because there are 40 people all vying to get close enough to hear, and to top it off, your luggage has been lost for three days.

Thankfully, our first experience was absolutely delightful.

We enjoyed fantastic luxury hotels, ate were the locals prefer to eat, never stood in a line, enjoyed unbelievably qualified tour guides, traveled in a small group of 12 people, had generally 3-4 hours of free time each day (and a local guide to help us decide what to do), never had to give a moments thought about the logistics of getting from point A to point B, and quite literally had more opportunity to immerse ourselves in the local culture at a price that I would have been hard pressed to duplicate on my own.

Now, I realize that not all group travel companies are equal.  You certainly need to do your homework and look for the recommendations of folks who have used the company before.  However, having said that, and while not willing to give up on my independent travel, I’m quite certain that we’ll consider another international group travel experience in the future.

Our first experience was simply brilliant, as one of our new British friends was quite fond of saying.

How about you?  Have you any group travel experience?  Would you consider group travel?

David and Carol Porter are contributors on the AARP blog, blog regularly at theroamingboomers.com and keep us updated on their travels via their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

1. Arrive at the airport earlier than normal.  Seriously. A great deal of the stress found at our nation’s airports during very busy times is caused by late travelers.  The airports are certain to be busy, and arriving an hour earlier than normal is certain to alleviate the potential of stress from harried crowds. 
2. Know your backup plan in case your flight is cancelled. With snow hitting the Midwest this weekend, the Friday before Christmas is shaping up to be a rough day for airlines. Be prepared – knowing other flights that can get you to your destination can help you adjust quickly when talking to a stressed airline agent. Most airlines are now under flexible rebooking policies due to the storm; if you’re headed to the Midwest or Northeast, you might want to change your flight now. Oh, and save your airline’s 1-800 number. Here’s a list of all of them. 
3. Weigh your luggage at home.  The maximum weight allowed for your checked bags is 50 lbs.  Believe me, there’s nothing worse than digging through your undies in a massive crowd looking for items to remove from your bag to reduce its weight.  Plan ahead, and save yourself a lot of grief.
4. Not all foods are allowed.  Cakes, pies, bread, donuts, turkeys, etc., are all permitted. Here is a list of items that should be placed in your checked bags or shipped: cranberry sauce, creamy dips and spreads (cheeses, peanut butter, etc.), gift baskets with liquid or gel food items (salsa, jams and salad dressings), gravy, jams, jellies, maple syrup, oils and vinegars, sauces, soups, wine, liquor and beer.
5. Wrapped gifts are allowed, but not encouraged.  It is recommended that you wait until you land to wrap your gifts.  If there is something in your gift that needs to be inspected, you are likely to be required to unwrap the gift.  This slows the line down and will produce a steady stream of uncomfortable looks from your fellow passengers.
6. Beverages. Wine, liquor, beer, and all of your favorite beverages are permitted in your checked baggage. You can also bring beverages packaged in 3.4 oz or less bottles in your carry-on bags in the allowed in the 3.4 oz baggie.  Pay heed – you certainly don’t want to leave your favorite bottle of wine with the TSA agents.
7. Snow globes. Evidently, folks have been having their snow globes confiscated by the TSA.  The TSA now allows small snow globes in carry-on luggage when packed in a passenger’s plastic 3.4 oz bag. Snow globes that appear to contain less than 3.4 ounces (approximately tennis-ball size) will be permitted if the entire snow globe, including the base, is able to fit in the same one clear, plastic, quart-sized, re-sealable bag as a passenger’s other liquids.
8. Double-check your bags for guns.  I know, this sounds silly.  But it’s amazing how many folks have guns confiscated at the TSA checkpoints every single day.  Save yourself the hassle of a bag check, a police interview and a potential arrest by making sure you leave your gun at home.
9. Christmas Sweaters. The TSA has announced that while Christmas sweaters can have a nauseating effect on passengers, they are currently permitted through all TSA checkpoints.

For additional information on holiday airline travel, the TSA recommends that you familiarize yourself with their “What to Know Before You Go” page.

Above all, we wish you safe travel and pray that you greatly enjoy your time with loved ones during this coming holiday season.

David and Carol Porter are contributors on the AARP blog, blog regularly at theroamingboomers.com and keep us updated on their travels via their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

We know this from personal experience, as Carol had her purse stolen a few years ago when we were visiting Rome.  Inside the purse was her passport, wallet filled with cash and credit cards, and other valuables and goodies that women like to keep in their purses.

We spent nearly three hours in an Italian police station reporting the theft.  Then, we had to call all of our credit card companies, and to top it all off, we spent nearly a whole day getting Carol a new passport at the American consulate’s office.

What a mess!

Let me just say that we are now a lot more careful when we travel. Here’s a few things we’ve learned:

6 Tips to Protect Yourself From Pickpockets:

1. As much as possible, try not to look like a tourist.  Standing with a camera around your neck, wearing your brand new checkered Bermuda shorts, while reading a map is practically screaming, “come steal my stuff.”
2. Photocopy important documents. Make a copy of your passport, driver’s license and both the front and back of your credit and debit cards to keep in your hotel room’s safe.  If you do suffer a loss, you will be very happy to have copies of these documents.
3. Ladies, if possible, do not carry a purse.   If you must, consider buying a women’s travel purse, a cross-body style that sits safely in front of you, rather than hanging on your shoulder.  Keep it on at all times and never put it on the back of a chair.
4. Men, keep your wallet in your front pocket.  Even better yet, don’t keep it in your pockets at all.  We travel with a small backpack that carries our camera, water bottle, and important documents.  What’s nice about this backpack is that it is impervious to pickpockets.  All of the entrance zippers are between my back and the pack itself and we only keep maps and such in the side zippered pocket.  Here’s a link.  Backpacks are fairly ubiquitous nowadays and they blend in very well.
5. Protect your cell phone.  With all of the personal information stored on our cell phones these days, make certain to protect and hide your cell phone on you as much as you would your cash.
6. Be alert.  Pickpockets roam in very crowded areas.  They will observe you, look for a weakness, and the “strike” might only be a slight bump on a crowded subway, bus or tourist attraction.  However, be wary of wondering alone on dark streets.  Bolder thieves will simply accost you if they see you alone.

We’re certainly not here to make our readers afraid to travel!  Having said that, and having been a victim of thieves while traveling, our desire is to simply increase your awareness so that your vacation is wholly enjoyable and isn’t clouded by theft as ours was.

Happy and safe traveling!

David and Carol Porter are contributors on the AARP blog, blog regularly at theroamingboomers.com and keep us updated on their travels via their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Our best advice: bring two-days worth of travel goodies in your carry-on bag.

While this will resolve any first few day “survival” issues, do you know your rights if your luggage moves from delayed to lost?

Lost Luggage Tips

• Packing: Never, ever put valuable or irreplaceable items in your checked luggage.
• Check-in: If you can avoid it, don’t check in at the last minute.  Even though you’re on the plane, your bag might not make it with you.
• Damaged Luggage: If your luggage arrives smashed or torn, the airline will negotiate a settlement to pay you its depreciated value.  The same holds true for the contents of your luggage.
• Delayed Bags: Don’t panic.  Chances are good that your luggage will reconnect with you.  The airlines have sophisticated systems to track down the vast majority of misplaced bags.  Head to the luggage counter and ask the attendant to start a lost luggage claim.
• Lost Luggage: If your luggage is truly lost, then you will submit another claim form and the airline will begin the process of compensating you for the depreciated value of your belongings.  They may offer you cash or possibly the option of free tickets on a future flight.
• Limited Liability: Each airline asserts a dollar limit on their liability for lost or damaged checked baggage.  On domestic trips, the airline can invoke a liability ceiling that is regulated by DOT and is adjusted every two years. On international round-trips that originate in the United States, the liability limit is set by a treaty called the Montreal Convention.

For more details on this and other consumer rights regarding air travel, click the above link.

David and Carol Porter are contributors on the AARP blog, blog regularly at theroamingboomers.com and keep us updated on their travels via their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

I think of my dearly departed grandmother who made the best Thanksgiving Day dinners in the world with nearly everything made from scratch out of her garden.

I think of my departed mother-in-law Rita who loved putting on a big Thanksgiving spread and having her family around her.

And, I think of my own mother’s pumpkin pie.  Yum. Yum. Yum.

However, for millions of Americans, they’ll think of the overcrowded airports, long security lines, and hassled travelers that they will find along the way. Hard to be thankful for that.

To help you arrive with your sanity on Thanksgiving Day, here are a few important tips:

5 Travel Tips for Thanksgiving Day Travelers

1. Get to the airport earlier than usual. Seriously. The numbers of travelers will be up significantly and will put pressure on the system. Don’t forget to check in ahead of time, print your boarding pass, and let your airline know if you’ll need a wheelchair in advance – the fewer things you have to do once you arrive at the airport, the better.
2. Weigh your bags.  The airlines generally allow a maximum of 50 lbs. for your checked luggage.  If it’s 55 lbs, then you will be pulling your undies out in front of everyone in the airport. Besides knowing whether you are a boxers or briefs kinda guy, they are not going to be happy that you held them up.  And ladies, I’m certain that you don’t want to be hauling our your Spanks in front of the whole world.  Right? You can buy a little handheld luggage scale to use at home – here’s a few of Amazon’s best options. 
3. Apply ahead of time for TSA Pre-Check Expedited Screening.  This will put you ahead of everyone in the line.  No waiting, and you get to keep your shoes, belt, and coat on.  Here’s how you can apply. 
4. Traveling with Food.  Everyone wants to bring back a favorite food from Thanksgiving dinner.  Just think of all of the wonderful turkey sandwiches you could have.  While pies, and left-over turkey is allowed, you are certain to run into trouble if you attempt to bring a liquid onboard.  Sauces, dips, gift baskets with liquids, gravy, jams, jellies, syrups, oils, vinegars, soups, and wine, liquor, and beer will not be allowed on the plane.  To prevent heartbreak, ship these items home, check your bag, or don’t bring them at all.
5. Traveling with Gifts. While wrapped gifts are not prohibited, you may have to unwrap the gift if it sets off an alarm.  Better to ship your gifts ahead of time, or at the very least, wrap them once you get to your destination. Or, buy them online and ship them to your holiday destination- a friend has a trick where her parents know that all packages marked with a special name don’t get opened til it’s time.

Above all, be patient.  It is going to be crowded, the lines will be long, and nothing will happen as fast as you’d like it to.  Breathe in, breathe out, Grasshopper!

David and Carol Porter are contributors on the AARP blog, blog regularly at theroamingboomers.com and keep us updated on their travels via their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

We’re lined up like cattle for slaughter.  People are tired, kids are screaming, and worst of all, the whole thing moves like molasses in Antartica because people refuse to come to these security lines prepared.

Come on, you’ve seen the guy who steps up to the security belt and then decides to remove his belt, empty the 15 pens out of his pocket-protector, remove God-knows-what from each his pockets, slowly untie his laced-up shoes, remove his coat, remove his computer, and then gets sent back through because he had bottled water in his carry-on bag.  ACK!

Sometimes,  I think it would be a good idea to have a giant rubber hand come out of the wall and slap you on the head if you come unprepared to this massive bottleneck in our airline transportation system.

Here’s a few questions for you:

• How would you like to move to the very front of the TSA airport security lines?
• How would you like to leave your shoes on?
• How would you like to leave your 3-1-1 compliant liquids in your bag?
• How would you like to leave your laptop in your bag?
• How would you like to leave your jacket on?
• And for heaven’s sake, how would you like to leave your doggone belt on?

Skip the line, put your bags on the conveyor belt, and go through the metal detectors.  That’s it!  You walk through the airport security line like you’re the President of Monaco, or something!

How you ask?  Sign up for the TSA Pre-Check that is currently being rolled out across the nation.  It’s not yet available on all airlines, and in all airports, but it is certain to be coming soon to an airport near you.

How to Sign Up for TSA Pre-Check

1. Call your airline to see if they participate.  Currently, the program is only available through your airline.
2. If so, sign up for the program and add your PASSID to your airline’s frequent flyer program.  This will embed the eligibility code into your boarding pass.
3. Determine which airports are currently participating in the TSA Pre-Check. You can find a map here.  This is also rolling out across the country and is not yet available everywhere.
4. If you are a frequent international traveler, enroll with the Global Entry program and you will get these benefits. Bonus – you’ll completely bypass the long immigration lines in international airports.

Now that you know, sign up for this program right away, or you will see Carol and I waving at you as we pass you by standing in line.  Instead, breeze through with us and let’s go have a mocha latté.

David and Carol Porter are contributors on the AARP blog, blog regularly at theroamingboomers.com and keep us updated on their travels via their Facebook and Twitter accounts. 

Concierge Frank Laino, Stafford Hotel London

As I write this, Londoners and travelers from all over the world are descending on the London 2012 Olympic Stadium for the much anticipated Opening Ceremony.

It will be another 8 hours before we get to see this fabulous ceremony here in Scottsdale, Arizona.  However, I was wondering what the mood was on the streets of London and decided to reach out to our new London friend, Frank Laino.

Frank is considered to be one of London’s preeminent hotel concierges, working at the landmark Stafford Hotel London, and so I thought I would throw a few questions that might be on the minds of travelers from this side of the pond.

Interview with Stafford Hotel London Concierge, Frank Laino

• With the London 2012 Olympics in full swing, what is the mood like in London from a Londoner’s perspective? How about the mood of London’s visitors?
  • London was eerily quiet earlier this week. Many businesses have scaled down operations and have been encouraging staff to work from home. That combined with school holidays meant that things were oddly calm, however from Wednesday onwards there has been a gradual influx of Olympics visitors which turned into a flood today. All of a sudden, there is absolutely nothing else that anyone is talking about other than the Games, and everyone I know can not wait for tonights opening ceremony.
• From a travel professionals perspective, do you feel like London is well prepared for the onslaught of international travelers?
  • Yes I do. I think there will be less business traffic on the road which will keep things moving. The real pressure is on public transport as everyone is being told to use it, but I think it will cope.
• From a Londoner’s perspective, what does it mean to you to host the 2012 Summer Olympics?
  • We are a generally grumpy and cynical lot, but if you scratch beneath the surface all native Londoners are proud of their city and I am certain that will become evident as the Games progress. We are desperate to put on a really good show.
• Is your hotel sold out?
  • Yes and No – we still have a small amount of availability for various dates – and don’t believe what you read about sky high rates.
• What are the top five questions you are getting as the preeminent concierge of London?
  • How bad is the traffic?
  • Can I get tickets for the Opening Ceremony?
  • Where is Stratford?
  • What happens if it rains?
  • Will the Queen be lighting the Olympic Flame?
• In conclusion, on behalf of London, what would you like to say to all who are visiting London for the very first time?
  • A very warm welcome to our unique, historic, multi-cultural city. We are going to do everything we can to put on a great show for you, and I hope this will be the first of many future visits for you.

We made our way to London with our “Roaming Boomer” hats on this past April.  We greatly enjoyed the city, and we’re looking forward to watching this year’s Olympics from the perspective of our recent visit.

Thanks to Frank Laino with the Stafford Hotel London for answering our questions, and here’s a nice glass of Pinot Noir raised in salute to all of the athletes now competing on the world’s stage at the London 2012 Olympics.

Salute!

David and Carol Porter are contributors on the AARP blog, blog regularly at theroamingboomers.com and keep us updated on their travels via their Facebook and Twitter accounts. 

In fact, growing up in the midwest, the use of this word was certain to find a bar of Dial soap scraped on my teeth as my dear mother was always quick to wash my mouth out with soap with its use.

However, while certain profane words were absolutely forbidden, the adults in my world seemed to find words like sh*t, damn, and hell a softer, gentler form of profanity and their use was fairly wide spread when emphatic expression was found necessary.

Although, if there were small children around, we might hear the word hell softened with H-E-Double Toothpicks, or perhaps the word sh*t softened without the vowel.  SHHT!

I’ll never forget my very prim and proper grandmother telling us about a candy bar named Damfino.  According to my grandmother, when asked as a child what kind of candy bar she would like, she would respond, “Damfino!”  I never did learn if that was true or not.  But she seemed to revel in the telling of the story.

There’s a few Internet memes and funny YouTube videos about “sh*t people say” in certain situations. So, what about traveling? We came up with our own list – with the help of AARP’s Facebook commenters. Without further ado…

The Sh*t Baby Boomer Travelers Say

• Is there a rest area coming up?  I have to pee!
• Husband to his wife: “wanna try that sexting thing that people talk about?”
• Husband to his wife: “we’re not lost, we’re just on an adventure!”
• Wife to her husband: “will you please just pull over and ask for directions!”
• Husband to his wife: “I’ve got the Viagra, now where’s that Barry White CD?”
• Crap!  We’re out of Metamucil.  Quick, find a drugstore!
• How do I get off this damnable roundabout?
• Let’s find a restaurant where we can use our AARP discount.
• Wife to titillated husband: “Put that thing away, the grandchildren might hear us!”
• Truckers eat here.  It must be good!
• Oh look, a yard sale sign!
• Let’s look at the map to make certain that the GPS is accurate.
• Let’s try to make the whole trip without stopping.
• Wife to husband: “Are you sure you know where you’re going?”
• Wife to husband: “For heaven’s sake.  That stinks.  Roll down the window!
• What was I saying?
• Husband to wife with “low fuel” warning lamp on: “I think we can make it”.
• Wife to husband when they run out of gas:  ”Proud of yourself?”
• Quit drinking all that water, you’re just gonna have to pee!
• Wife to husband in plane:  ”Did you fart?”
•  Hotel bathroom.  Wife to husband, “Sheez! Did you die in there?”
• Quick!  Find a bathroom.  I’ve got the green-apple-two-step!
• Husband to wife after policeman pulls them over: “Let me do the talking!”
• Wife to husband while body surfing: “Honey, pull your swim suit up.  It’s down around your knees!”
•  Terrified husband about to go through airport security:  ”OH NO!  My Viagra just kicked in!”

Mom, please forgive me.  I promise to go immediately gargle with the liquid soap in our bathroom.

Do you have any funny things that you say while traveling? Share them with us in the comments section below.

David and Carol Porter are contributors on the AARP blog, blog regularly at theroamingboomers.com and keep us updated on their travels via their Facebook and Twitter accounts. 

However, when the perfect photographic moment comes into view, a great many find themselves frustrated with their ability to capture the moment with a great photograph.

Enter to win a Nikon digital camera.  Look below!

Here’s five simple tips that will go a long, long ways to helping you be prepared to get that great family vacation photograph.

5 Simple Tips for Great Vacation Photographs

1. Practice before you leave home – This is quite likely the most important tip of all.  Get your owners manual out and practice some of the lighting and subject situations that you are likely to find yourself with.  You’re likely to have family members posing in front of scenes and objects.  You’re likely to be photographing in bright sun, cloudy skies, indoors, in places where flash is not allowed, on beaches, on hiking trails; the various situations are near infinite.  Set up these situations as best you can at home and practice, practice, practice.
2. Memory Cards – Today’s megapixal digital cameras can quickly eat up a memory card.  This is particularly true if you plan to shoot any video on your vacation.  Today’s digital cameras will generally tell you how many photographs you can store on your memory card.  Take a look at this and determine if your card is large enough to store all the photographs from your vacation.  If you happen to witness an elk doing the moonwalk, you’ll want to be certain to have enough space on your memory card to capture it.
3. Scene Modes -It’s a simple fact: many baby boomers have never taken a photograph out of their digital camera’s green automatic setting.  Come on…live large…explore the scene settings on your camera!  If your camera was purchased in the last few years, you are very likely to have quite a number of special scene modes.  These might include special settings for portraits, beach/snow, cloudy skies, sunsets, landscapes, museum, close-up, indoors, etc, etc.  While your green automatic setting will try to accomplish all things, these special setting will give your camera more information and allow it to do a better job.
4. Fill-Flash – One of the most common mistakes I see in vacation photographs is shadowy faces in front of a brightly-lite background.  Your family is posed in front of the Grand Canyon.  The scene is stunning.  You shoot the photograph and the faces of your loved ones are dark and shadowy.  Believe it or not, you should be using your flash quite a bit in sunny situations where people are standing in front of brightly-lit subjects.  Your camera doesn’t know that you have loved ones in front of the Grand Canyon.  It just sees all that light and compensates accordingly.  In situations like these, you need to force your camera to flash and then your loved ones faces will be bright and clear.  Practice this at home before you leave!
5. Composition – In photography, it seems to be human nature to stick our subjects smack dab in the middle of a photograph.  However, this can result in drab, predictable photos.  Before you get to the subject of your photograph, give some thought to how you will compose it.  How can you better tell a story with your photograph?  Instead of shooting straight on, can you shoot down on your subjects?  Can you get ground level and shoot up?  Type “rule of thirds” in Google and do a little study on composition.  A little creativity and study on photographic composition can really make a big difference in coming home with great vacation photographs.

Win a Nikon Coolpix S9300 Digital Camera

To help you take even better photographs, Nikon USA has graciously offered to give one of our readers a FREE Nikon Coolpix S9300.  Nikon is a global leader in photographic equipment, and also happens to be The Roaming Boomers® camera of choice.

The Nikon Coolpix S9300 retails for $349.95 and has the following cool features:

• A 16.0 Megapixal CMOS Sensor w/ 10x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom
• 3″ Ultra-High Resolution LCD Monitor
• Shoots Full HD 1080p Movies w/ Stereo Sound
• Shoots Unbelievable Low-Light Photographs
• Built-In GPS
• Shoots Amazing Panoramic Photographs

How to Win:

Complete the following sentence in the comments section below:

“I’d like to win the Nikon S9300 because _____________________”

Winner must be a U.S. resident and at least 18 years of age.  Final entry date is July 14th.  Winner will be determined using random.org.

We are often asked, “should I plan my own shore excursions and try to save a little money?”  Our answer is: it depends.

With the advent of the Internet, it is completely possible to plan your own shore excursions, and perhaps save a little money.  However, do-it-yourself shore excursions do not come without an element of risk.  What if, for example, your do-it-yourself shore excursion gets you back late to the dock?  Will they provide you with a nice bottle of wine as you watch your cruise ship sail into the horizon?

Do-it-yourself Shore Excursion Options

• Local Tourism Boards – As professional travelers, this is one of our favorites.  Depending on the size of your destination, it is quite likely that your destination will have its own website.  If your destination is one that is frequented by cruise ships, there are certain to be many tour options listed.  We would further recommend a phone call to someone at the destinations website to get a local persons perspective and opinion.  As an example, here is the “what to do” page from the US Virgin Islands website.
• Trip Advisor – With millions of people logging on to Trip Advisor to share their experiences, this site is well worth a visit to get a few ideas.  If we look at the island of St. Thomas, for example, there are nearly one hundred tours listed in their “what to do” section.  Many of them have well over 100 peoples impressions.
• Shore Excursion Websites – We don’t have any personal experience with these, but as you might imagine, the Internet is chocked full with folks contending to be the shore excursion superstore.  You might explore PortCompass, Shore Excursions,  Shore Trips, or Viator Shore Excursions which pledges a low-price guarantee.
• Private Tour Guides – Head to Google and type in “Private Tour Guides + “Your Destination”.  Again, this will vary widely depending on your destination, but if you loathe being cooped-up with a bus-load of people, this might provide a smaller, or perhaps ever private option.
• Rent a Car – For those of you who are rugged individualists, you may want to rent a car and simply head out on your own.  Again, this will vary wildly on your destination.  For example, there’s no way I would want to drive the streets of Rome, but we did rent a car on the island of Bora Bora and did a little of our own exploration.
• Hang Around the Port – Depending on your port-of-call, you might simply want to hang out at the port.  When we were in Ketchikan, Alaska, we found a delightful foot-tour of the city and wandered off by ourselves on foot.
• Hop-on-Hop-Off Bus Tours – If your destination is a large city, you will find wonderful hop-on-hop-off bus tours that will get you around to the major sites.

Disadvantages to Do-it-yourself Shore Excursions

• Getting Left Behind – As I mentioned above, if you go off on your own, the cruise ship has no idea where you are.  If you’re not back in time, they may just leave you behind.
• Homeword Required – Don’t overlook this.  If you go off on your own, you will likely need to personally communicate with a local merchant.  This may involve foreign language, foreign currency (they may not take a credit card), and certainly the tour operators dependability.  When dealing with the cruise ship’s packages, they will have taken care of all of this for you.
• Time is Money – This will vary from person to person, but just how much time do you want to spend to save $40?  Some will answer, “no time”, and some will answer “however long it takes”.  As professional travelers, we know how long it takes to figure all this stuff out.  If we didn’t have professional contacts in our destinations, we would be looking long and hard at the cruise ship’s excursions.  Certainly we would explore other options, but in our view, the time, hassle, and risk isn’t worth $40 to us.  If the savings was significant, we might be persuaded to go off on our own.

Important note:  if you do go off on your own excursion, make certain to bring your passport and credit cards.  We’ve read horror stories where folks have gone off on their own with only their cruise ship’s door key in their pockets, and they’ve missed the boat.  Can you imagine?  ACK!

I suppose the disadvantages might seem a little scary.  But to be sure, untold millions of people have planned their own shore excursions, saved a few shekels, and had wonderful experiences.

We want you to know that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question.  It depends on your destination, your willingness to plan well, and the amount of time you are willing to invest.

Do you have a trick for great shore excursions? Tell us more in the comments!

David and Carol Porter are contributors on the AARP blog, blog regularly at theroamingboomers.com and keep us updated on their travels via their Facebook and Twitter accounts.